A Journal of Random Things

Category: Uncategorized

I spend a lot of my time at work on the phone talking to various people about various things. A good number of those calls involve me “meeting” someone for the first time, and it’s always just a little weird. The phone is great, since I refuse to do this kind of thing over email (I’d use IM before email – some type of real-time communication), but it’s still not the same as meeting in person.

I had a call scheduled with someone this afternoon – let’s just call him Brad (Pitt, of course, he’s in my head since he was on the Today Show this morning. mmm.). Brad’s phone number was in his email signature, so when the time came for the call, I dialed that. And the conversation went like this…

me: Hi, may I please speak to Brad?
(male voice, sounds around the same age as Brad): Brad?
me: Did I dial the wrong number?
: There isn’t a Brad here, what number were you trying to dial?
me: 555-555-555
: That’s my number, but no Brad.
me: Oh, ok, thanks
: What, did you have a date? Did he stand you up?
me: Yeah, I guess so. Damn that Brad!
: Brad probably thought you were just another date. He didn’t realize that you’re a keeper.
me (by now, I’m positive it’s either Brad on the phone, or a roommate): I guess you know Brad, then?
: No, there isn’t a Brad here. But you had a date, huh.

And here’s where I’m flat out laughing, trying to end the conversation, as he goes on and on about my date with Brad.

Conversation finally ends, I email Brad, apologize for trashing his rep, and ask him to call me.

Brad calls a few minutes later, and never mentions my weird email about ruining his reputation.

Wouldn’t you have at least asked me what happened when I dialed the other number? You know, the one at the bottom of multiple emails as his signature? Why was I talking about his reputation?

But nope. Not a word about it, and we talked for a good 15 – 20 minutes. So there was certainly time to ask.

I find the whole thing very amusing, and am now fascinated by this mystery. If that guy didn’t know Brad, why on earth was he going on and on and on to me? Everyone gets the occasional wrong number where the person on the other end won’t shut up, but this was a little too, I don’t know, familiar? I was near positive the guy on the phone knew Brad. I STILL feel like he must have known Brad.

I highly doubt I’ll ever learn more about this, although I fully intend to ask Brad about it again. There may not even be anything to learn – I could have just dialed a wrong number Brad happened to write in his emails again and again.

Logic says it’s nothing. But you know? I just have a feeling it’s gotta be something.

(found via Digg) – Top 150 Graffiti Artists on Facebook. It’s pretty amazing the art these people are doing. I can barely draw a smiley face! Well worth a look even if you don’t hang out on facebook. Well worth the blog entry too. Preview here if you realllllly don’t want to go to facebook.

Wanted to know what my day was like? Here it is. Those of you who have been reading my blog the longest will probably get the biggest kick out of this, since 5-6 years ago I did these entries allll the time. I haven’t in years, though, so take this in good fun, and please believe me, I don’t do this often.

Here we go – dayblogging. Lifeblogging. Twigging. Or as I like to call it, timed ramblings.

9:30 am – G’morning, just got in to the office, time to get coffee, then jump on the first conference call of the day.

10:15 – uh. Fire alarm went off. Made for an interesting moment during the call: “Sorry, I can’t hear a word you’re saying, have to go.” No reason for the alarm, and it turned off after a few minutes. But still interesting.

11am – First scrum of the day down, two conference calls down. Word is the fire alarm was a “test of the system.”In the middle of the morning with no warning? Ookie.

11:15 – I’ve been stood up by my 11am. Love her, though, so all’s ok, I’ll take the spare time, I’m sure we’ll catch up later.

11:35 – Caught up with my 11am. She was still running an hour behind from the time change. How cute.

12:06 – Second scrum down, one more to go. Actually, I’m not sure if we’re having it. Verrrry quiet in the office today, lots of engineering folks (and a big chunk of the api team I’m on) up in the Bay Area for OAuth/Open Social talks. Can’t complain about quiet.

12:15 – Neat, there is now a couch in one of our war rooms.

12:30 – Under headphones, writing specs. 1/2 hr until my next meeting. The guy who looks like my ex just walked by. I wish he wasn’t a nice guy…it’s always weird talking to him. I have not, on the other hand, seen the Cute Boy yet. I did hear his voice this morning, or at least, I thought I did.

3:45 – Two more meetings down, one more to go. To do list is growing.

4:25 – Meetings done for the day! In case you were counting, that was 5 meetings, plus 3 scrums for the day. Phew. Now that I can breathe…going to get more coffee (I’m 100% running on coffee right now, I never made it upstairs to grab lunch), then work.

5:00 – Reading documentation and writing specs.

5:15 – Ooh, new music playing on the ipod! I have a tendency to not really pay attention to the music I listen to when I’m working, even so far as the point where I discover that I’ve memorized lyrics to songs I didn’t know I’d heard. Right now I’m listening to the “new” Adema album, and I swear I have never heard this song before (and I like it!). But this is hardly new, I’ve had the album since it came out a couple months ago, and listened to it a billion times. And sure enough, I know the lyrics. But I didn’t know I knew the song.

5:30 – Seriously, I’ve heard this album before? I’m such a dope sometimes. Sounds slightly like old school Poison, although I’m not sure Adema would love the comparison.

5:49 – It’s always fun when developer documentation refers to an undefined parameter. DUDE! I’m not a programmer, I’m trying to learn this. Don’t say I can use parameters and not tell me what it does, unless you want me wreaking havoc trying to figure out how much I can do with it.

6:35 – Email answered, spec *thiiiiis* close to done, and I’m absolutely freezing. Time to go home, I can finish the spec there. Never saw the Cute Boy. Oh well.

7:21 – Home! Stopped on the way home and was followed around the store by some guy. The marriage proposal was ok, not being able to lose him in the store was not. I even went to the “feminine products” section, thinking he wouldn’t keep asking me out if I picked up a box of tampons. But nope, didn’t get rid of him until I paid and walked out (and then only because he was stuck at the other cash register!). Lovely.

Day’s over, time for me to go feed the cats and get some exercise, finish the spec, then I have a date with Tom Baker. He is very much creeping me out in all of the episodes I’ve seen so far, but I’m working my way through it.

I have to admit, I had fun with the blogging today, it’s been a long time since I’ve written like this. I doubt anyone really “misses” those entries of mine, but they sure were fun to write.

I remember keeping a notepad window up all day at work so I could do
that, date stamp little one-liners about what my day was like, then just
publish the whole thing as one big blog entry at the end of the day.
Kinda like twitter-blogging. Twigging!

Tomorrow, I twig. Today is just me talking about Twigging. Weak entry
for today, but I’m tired.

Today’s entry is a little bit of “cheating” on my part, or at least what I consider “cheating.” I do not consider Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Pownce or any of the other bajillion status updates I make daily blogging. A blog entry consists of a fully formed thought, not a quick bitch or a link. My entry today? A bunch of the links I’ve shared on Pownce over the last week or two. Semi-cheating, I guess?

Anyway, like everyone else, I like to think I only share the good links, so, enjoy!

I bought the DVD’s of 21 Jump Street back when they came out, and have been slooowly working my way through them. I saw nearly all of the episodes when I was a kid, and it’s fun to see exactly what I do and don’t remember. For instance…I remembered that I had the almost-required crush on Johnny Depp, but I had no idea I’d dressed THAT badly. We lived in such a copycat period that I see kids on the show wearing identical outfits to those I owned. Down to the brands of clothing, the lace in the hair, the plastic hoop earrings, and the velcro Reeboks. Uuugh. I’m watching me on that show.

I own a fair number of television series on DVD at this point, but nearly all of them have some sort of science fiction spin to them. They’re not really grounded in our reality in one way or another. This is the first time I’ve watched something on DVD and had so many “god I remember that” moments that refer to either events in real life, trends of the period, or just stupid things going on in the culture. For example, the Very Special Episode, of which 21 Jump Street had many.

This is the first time I’m glad I bought a set of DVDs not just for the show itself, but for the memories it inspires. Someday, kids can watch this stupid show that I still adore, and see how wacky things were then. Bad kids didn’t shoot good kids, they gave them wedgies; you were told to Just Say No and expected to listen; the Big Bang was stirring up trouble in Bio class (oh wait, that’s still happening…); people were blockading public schools to keep kids with AIDS out – hell, AIDS was an instant death sentence; Bernie Goetz…there are a billion other examples from large to small that I can give from the show.

I’m not calling 21 Jump Street a historical reference or anything. But to a kid who grew up in the 80’s, it does capture a point in time. I will always tie the day the Gulf War started to 21 Jump Street in my head because the news cut into the show to put the President on the air. I remember everything else about that moment, but the fact that my brother and I were watching 21 Jump Street has always been the strongest association for me.

I think if I had caved in and bought the 90210 box set I might have written this entry about those, although that series was later. That’s part of why I didn’t buy them – I REALLY remember all of 90210. Every single time I catch an episode on TV I either remember the entire plot, or remember it was a later episode from the “bad seasons” where I only half paid attention. I don’t really care to rewatch 90210. I barely remembered 21 Jump Street, and I was the right age for them to have shown up in my classroom, so I bought that. I’m quite happy with my decision.

It’s all icky and gucky in LA today – overcast, cool, definately one of those “go to the mall/movies/sit on the couch all day” days.

And I love it. Not that I mind LA weather, you can’t complain about 70 and sunny every day, but I truly do miss seasons. Time doesn’t pass ‘normally’ for me without actual seasons – I assume it’s the result of growing up in New York. I was in my 20’s before I ever lived anywhere that didn’t have four true seasons a year.

People may be complaining about the weather today, but I love it. It makes it a little easier to believe that Thanksgiving’s in two weeks. TWO WEEKS!

Now, I think I’m going to go for a walk. While in NY this may have been a ‘stay inside’ day, here it’s so rare, I gotta get out and enjoy it. I remember running out in the rain when I lived in NorCal as well.

Sun is fun, but eternal sunshine just isn’t normal. It’s nice to see that every so often, Los Angeles has some element of normalcy to it, even if it is rare.

Remember a few months back where I was all nervous that Speakeasy – my wonderful independent ISP – would change because it was bought by Best Buy?

Well, lemme put it this way.

I moved to California on 5/21. It is now 6/25. I still do not have internet access at home, and Speakeasy is not able to set it up for another month.

Speakeasy’s formerly wonderful customer support has been terrible to deal with the past month and a half. I tried as hard as I could to stick with them, I am a very loyal customer when I find something I like, but I really can’t wait anymore.

I called Time Warner this morning, and am getting Road Runner Saturday.

That’s over 6 weeks for Speakeasy, and less than 6 days for Time Warner.